INTRODUCTION

Leisure is a value whose roots go deep into scripture, spirituality, and contemporary society. Mindful of this rich heritage, I want to consider four aspects of leisure as a value in our contemplative and communal life: relaxing our bodies, resting our minds, connecting leisure and prayer, and connecting leisure and community life.¹

Let us look first, however, at how scripture speaks about leisure. Scripture celebrates God’s delight in us and our delight in God. Describing wisdom as creator, the author of Proverbs writes: “I was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before God always, rejoicing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (NRSV, Proverbs 8:30). Nan Merrill translates the line in Ps. 37: “Take delight in the Beloved, enjoy the bountiful gifts of Love” (Psalms for Praying, Ps. 37:4). Delight fulfills for me an aspect of leisure.

Then there is the great wealth of spirituality. To focus on our own Society’s heritage, I want to touch on the place of rest according to Madeleine Sophie Barat, RSCJ, and Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCJ.  For Madeleine Sophie, interior spirit was essential: “the continual remembrance of the presence of God . . . an immediate dependence upon grace and the secret impulses of the Holy Spirit.”²  This understanding or grasp of interior spirit from the point of view of leisure is an intentional value for our contemplative and communal life.

And how did Madeleine Sophie’s life reveal this value? Even with a strong work ethic, Sophie took time for rest after an illness, overwork, or a crisis.³  Her times of retreat were restful. Spending so much time in travel, she learned to stop along the way and enjoy people and places, for example, her family, Pauline Perdrau’s mother, and the children of the Petit Pensionnat in Paris. According to Phil Kilroy, RSCJ, in her biography of Madeleine Sophie, Sophie found an opportunity for rest during her illnesses when she could  reflect, read, and consider her next step: “The illnesses, which were real, actually gave her contemplative space to work at another level and achieve insight and courage for the path ahead.”⁴  She likewise urged her religious to value rest.⁵

Madeleine Sophie rested by turning inward and deepening her relationship with Christ, in contentment and in crisis. As Betsy Walsh, RSCJ, put it: “I think that is what she means by the interior life, to be more aware of him.”6  Betsy believes that Sophie suffered intensely so that the Society of the Sacred Heart could survive, at times when schism was really threatened. Since all is present to God, our reality as Religious of the Sacred Heart, our lives and who we are, was present in her suffering. We are a part of her life, of course, unknown to her.7

Janet Erskine Stuart seized every moment of constantly interrupted rest to write her stories.⁸  Her interpretation of the need for rest  was change of activity, not necessarily change of place or idleness: “The happiest holidays were those spent in the pursuit of some favourite hobby or study. In this spirit community holidays were to her a means of making progress. ”⁹ She encouraged her religious to use holiday time to improve their minds: “congé reunion questions, essays, her plays and the like.”¹⁰

Margaret Williams, RSCJ, described RSCJ spirituality as “inwardness for the outgoing.”¹¹ Leisure is a way to develop inwardness. The constantly renewed choice to relax our bodies and minds can contribute to our discovering and revealing God’s personal love for us.

Now I want to reflect about contemporary society and an image from a recent movie The Notebook, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, in which Allie and Noah at age seventeen enjoy a summer romance in 1937 in Seabrook, South Carolina. After she tells him about all the tutoring and classes she is taking, he replies, “I’m just wondering what you do for fun.”  Finally she says “Painting. I love to paint.” Leisure is a powerful way to forge a wedge in our workaholic culture.                       

Seven years later, engaged to another man, Allie walks into her fiancé’s office unannounced and says, “I’m not painting. I used to paint.” Then she tells him that she needs to take a couple of days at Seabrook and clear her mind. She sees the house that Noah has built and is dumbfounded to realize that he built it as she had wished and as he had promised.

Can this house be an image of each one’s heart, the house that God longs to build within us? Leisure is one way to become comfortable with our hearts. It is a way to renew our choice to let God be all of our life, our whole life, to create an open space within where God can act and which only God can fill. To take “useless time” that is never recorded on our calendar is important.

Leisure is more than a definite time or programmed activities: it is a mode of being that is similar to the way contemplation is a mode of being: while enjoying leisure and while being open to the Spirit, we are present in a calm and relaxed manner. The leisure mode is a tranquil quality of presence that is marked by peace, joy, and freedom. It has something in common with what we call the sabbath mode, the vacation mode, and with what I love to call the retreat mode, something about slowing down and not initiating. Therefore, I want to develop two points in my remarks: leisure as a value and the leisure mode as a dimension of our contemplative and communal life. Let us begin with the question: "How do we relax and renew our bodies and our minds?”

A. RELAXING OUR BODIES

I want to highlight three aspects of relaxing our bodies: sleep, exercise, and nature.

1. Sleep

Sleep is a way to relax our bodies. Many of us have discovered how we need to "calm down " before we go to bed at night. This realization may have been behind traditional spiritual practices of community life such as Compline and the nightly examen before bed. Today it may be an evening walk, a novel, but no stimulation of a graphic or violent nature.

For some of us who are morning people, sleep before midnight is especially helpful. Others are night owls on a different biorhythm, going to sleep around 2:00 a.m., and not taking phone calls until ten o’clock in the morning. Those who live at a clipped pace are often great at taking a short nap. Many of us find a siesta in the afternoon helps us relax and renew, even if it is only ten minutes long.

Is there a quality of leisure that presupposes our taking time to relax our bodies? How can we do that?

2. Exercise

A big help is exercise. Muscle tension binds anxiety. The release of muscle tension can free us to become peaceful. For example, we can take a daily walk, stretch, or practice yoga. For those of us who practice zen, there is sitting meditation and walking meditation, during which we become mindful of ourselves walking slowly and intentionally.

Take thirty seconds simply to pause and become aware of your breath. Begin by sitting up, spine straight, letting your gaze be three-fourths mast. Notice your breathing for ten seconds. Count your breathing one to ten. Move your breathing from your lungs to your diaphragm and let your stomach expand, for ten seconds.

Last February my community took time to share how we relax and renew our spirits. Several of us said that we relax taking walks in our neighborhood or along the ocean, in the early morning or at sunset. Somehow we are taken out of ourselves and drawn closer to God.

Another way to relax our bodies is to enjoy some sport. Are you a sports spectator and/or a sports participant?  I understand it is helpful to choose one or two sports and stick to them for a while. I am a sports participant: a swim and evening walk are part of my daily regime. I live with a sports spectator who relaxes watching athletics events and rooting for her favorite team. What are we beginning to learn here about leisure?

3. Enjoying Nature

Enjoying nature is a wonderful way to relax our bodies. Looking at the color green calms us. How do we look at nature: as an object of our perception and/or a subject of consciousness?

Animals are very relaxing. Petting a cat or dog releases endorphins, or at least positive energy, in our bodies. One community member who was living alone told us that she relaxes hearing her cat purr in her lap or behind her. Relating with animals can also help us become gentle and spontaneous.

For some, the ritual of a bath is very helpful; for others, salt showers are relaxing. Many of us know that heat can calm us: a hot shower or a hot drink. Whatever we say about relaxing the body implies taking time, letting go of preoccupations, and feeling ready for the daily demands of our lives.

B. RESTING OUR MINDS

Sometimes we wonder if it is possible to rest our minds. But only when we achieve a quiet mind can we become contemplative. How then do we rest the mind? I want to highlight three aspects of resting our minds: open space, creativity, and mindfulness of the present moment.

1. Open space

One of my practices is what I call "open space," prolonged periods of uninterrupted quiet to let my mind drift without telling it what to think about, without TV, the internet, or even a book.

Another practice that helps me create open space is “periodic reading deprivation.” I may choose not to read anything for a day, or read only what attracts, not what needs to be read.

Yet another way is positive thinking. Some of us find awareness of feeling anxiety, fear, or anger helpful. Others of us find gratitude, affirmations, and constant forgiveness helpful. The invitation to positive thinking often implies choosing to withhold blame, criticism, or gossip. It can also mean giving ourselves and others the benefit of the doubt.

Still another way I free space inside myself is through flexibility, choosing to be open to the unexpected, choosing to learn a new way of doing or seeing something, to take a new way of getting home, to use an unfamiliar locker, or to try a new hobby. Part of flexibility is letting our unconscious expectations simply be. Another part is being willing to try new patterns.

Once on a family vacation, my brother Lough was on the verge of clinching a business deal. He hung up the phone and finished his novel before phoning his client back. Afterwards, my sister Aileen asked him why he did not take the time to review their correspondence or the terms of the contract. He said: “I just needed to clear my mind.” His wife Mary creates open space by preparing incredible gourmet meals and practicing the violin.

2. Creativity

A powerful way to rest the mind is through creativity, for example, sketching, playing a musical instrument, or crocheting. I believe there is a similarity between the creative intuition behind art and poetry and contemplative intuition. The recent book called In Praise of Slowness describes leisure as the importance of being at rest and mentions crafts as “a perfect expression of the 'Slow philosophy.'”¹² Knitting helps some slip into Slow Thinking mode, and others find that while gardening, their minds go quiet and they feel calmer and less hurried (Honoré 219-225). 

My sister Aileen loves to relax by painting. Her creativity colors other parts of her life: the way she cooks, writes poetry, and decorates a room.

Creativity needs open space. Once I was sitting at a window on a Saturday morning and caught sight of a smoke stack across the path. I lingered watching the smoke curl, losing track of time. When I looked at the clock, I realized that I had watched the smoke for more than an hour. Afterwards I felt drawn to sit down and write twenty pages of a manuscript I was writing at the time, even though I had not been thinking about it during my smoke stack reverie. My mind had rested and could roam the way it wanted to. It was willing to cooperate with my work in progress. 

Two related practices that have helped me develop my creativity and my call to live a contemplative life are the daily “morning pages” and the weekly “artist date.” Both of these terms were coined, I believe, by Julia Cameron, author of the book called The Artist’s Way. Julia’s notion of “morning pages” is a daily practice in which we write everything that is on our minds in no sequential order without monitoring what we are writing and without the intention of storing these pages for anyone else to find or read.  Her notion of a weekly “artist date” is a couple of hours to build in some unscheduled time and to give us fresh images, for example, walking a seashore, going to an art museum, or combining photographs with scripture passages.¹³ The crazier and more useless the artist date the better, and especially with no expectation attached.

Concha Camacho, RSCJ, our general superior from 1970 to 1982, likened creativity to contemplation in that they are both “a penetration of the real, the ability to see possibilities present in the real – often hidden from our eyes – that we have to free, make visible.”¹⁴ She asked if the structures of our life are ordered toward communion and facilitate creativity which makes communion grow. And she described attention to reality, silence, and communion as conditions for creativity (Conferences 220).

3. Mindfulness of the present moment

Another way to rest the mind is mindfulness of the present moment. My sister Clare reflected on how refreshing concentration can be. She recalled having taught classical guitar to an internist who came weekly for his lesson. He told her: “You have no idea how refreshing this is. It takes every bit of my mind to play this stuff. It cleans my mind out. I don’t practice. I don’t bring anything in here.”¹⁵  She tells her guitar students to stare out the window twenty or thirty minutes before or during practice (CC).

Speaking on “Mindfulness in the Classroom,”  Dr. Lekshe Tsomo, a Buddhist nun, said:  “The quality of our mindfulness spills over to our actions.”¹⁶  Mary Hotz, RSCJ, talked about the two minutes she sets aside at the end of class for quiet when she invites the students to sit erect and become aware of their breathing. She observed: “Over time I think there is a community created just by sitting together in the silence” (AMC”).

One way that helps me become mindful of the present moment is my practice of zen. Often I begin and end a sitting meditation scattered. And yet deeper than all my thoughts is a quiet, a peace, that I find nourishing. Zen invites us to let everything we are thinking and feeling be, simply be. Joko Beck, a world-famous zen teacher at the Zen Center of San Diego, tells us over and over again that the point is not to "let go" but to "let be."¹⁷ In the fluidity between experiencing the physical sensations of our labeled thoughts and listening to surrounding sounds, we discover that strong feelings such as fear are only a combination of our thoughts and sensations.

Zen practice at the Center is based on the conviction that visceral awareness heals. This practice consists of four movements:

• becoming aware of our breathing at the beginning of a sitting meditation;
• labeling our thoughts, for example, “judging, fearing, having a grateful or angry thought;”
• experiencing the physical sensations of our labeled thought(s), and
• listening to surrounding sounds as a larger container of awareness.¹⁸

Take thirty seconds to try what Joko Beck at the Center calls “Bamboo Breath.” Spine erect, eyes three-fourths mast, inhale and hold for four, inhale again and hold for four, inhale again and hold for four. Exhale and hold for four, exhale again and hold for four, exhale again and hold for four. Do you feel the release of energy, of chi, in your toes?

I find it extremely helpful to sit with others in silence at the zendo. Sometimes unable to go, I safeguard time at home for two sittings, but it is not the same for me. What rests my mind is to step apart and share the silence.

One practice that helps me become mindful is slowing down gently, as I brush my teeth, as I eat, as I walk, or as I prepare food. Slowing down intentionally can bring me into the present moment and an awareness of what I am doing.

Another way to become mindful is taking pauses of whatever length of time. Sometimes I pause to recall God’s presence within and among us. At other times I pause to remember what needs to be done next in a calm and relaxed manner. And now and then I simply pause to delight in the fragrance of honeysuckle, the warmth of sunlight, or a child’s voice.

A practice that helps me come into the present moment is to listen to surrounding sounds like crickets, planes, or traffic. Living behind Founders Chapel, I can often choose to listen to the students at worship or at singing practice. It is inspiring and relaxing.

Then there is "work practice," doing our work mindfully and peacefully. It is especially nice when we enjoy what we are doing. I consider work practice done in faith as a practice of the presence of God. For Dr. Lekshe Tsomo, mindfulness “is the thread that takes spirituality into everyday living. No matter what you are doing, if you are doing it mindfully, it is practice: washing dishes, carrying out the trash.”¹⁹ In the context of mindfulness, leisure not only relaxes tension but allows us to choose and to be creative in small ways. Leisure can, in fact, help us to move beyond relaxation into a mode of quiet enjoyment and contemplation.

C. CONNECTING LEISURE AND PRAYER

Having considered the value of the practice of mindfulness, we can perhaps more readily accept how valuable leisure is for our contemplative and communal life. Many RSCJ and Associates connect leisure and prayer. I want to consider three aspects of this topic: connections between leisure and prayer, spiritual practices that can help us become wholly contemplative and wholly apostolic, and the leisure mode as a dimension of our contemplative life. 

1. Connections between leisure and prayer

When our community met recently to share how we relax, several spontaneously connected leisure and prayer. One community member told us that the one thing in her life is a life of prayer. At the center of it is the daily celebration of the Eucharist in which she has participated since the age of seven.

Another member shared that adoration during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in a nearby church is relaxing for her. She likes to go when she is tense, angry, or hurt. After awhile, she comes out and nothing is different in her life, but she no longer feels tense, angry, or hurt. She also likes to say the Office a lot. When she gets to something she likes, she just stays there and may not finish it.

Still another member told us that one of the things that is really important to her is the early morning. She loves to wake up early and listen to a Holosync CD that helps her brain shift to the beta waves, perhaps a contemporary way to prepare for prayer. Then she enters into meditation, and afterwards she likes to read and take a long walk. She confessed that she often experiences resistance to the things that really relax her.

A couple of us in our community shared with one another that we love to listen to music as a way of praying and relaxing. For many months I have been listening to the soundtrack CD of the movie The Notebook. The first few months when I played a certain piece, I kept remembering that particular scene in the movie. Then one day I felt drawn to let the music be a kind of “composition of place” for prayer and I felt the presence of God through the music.

Ellen Hoffman, RSCJ, showed me her paintings; she paints not only in class but on her own time. When she plays rummycube, she enjoys the company, and chooses guided imagery retreats when available.²⁰  Be Mardel, RSCJ, shared with me her notes of an article on leisure which points out that the call to wholeness is the call to leisure: the nimbleness of mind produced by leisure enables us to play, and the contemplative awareness found in leisure ushers us into the presence of God.²¹

2. Spiritual practices that can help us become wholly contemplative and wholly apostolic

Spiritual practices can help us become wholly contemplative and wholly apostolic. When one of our retired religious was asked about her spiritual practices, she replied at once: “Sunrise!” This is a delightful response.

We can be on a “contemplative walk,” taking the long way around to the office, with time to reflect on what we are doing and for whom. When the jungle mind is racing, we need a call to come back to the present moment so that we can make room for God. Regular contemplative practice helps us to pay attention and to ask ourselves at times during and at the end of the day: Where is God for me? Where do I need to go? We want to bring our day to closure in the heart of Christ. We can pause to remember people we have met this day with gratitude, being mindful of someone in need, and praying for those who have asked our prayer. If we are anxious about a particular person, for example, there can be a moment of trust as we turn to God and place that person in God’s hands. In these ways we are led to a personal relationship with Christ.²²

We can spontaneously connect leisure and prayer. Reading the psalms or the Magnificat meditatively helps us focus on the mystery of God’s love in our lives. Sitting in silence watching the ocean is deeply relaxing. The image of the beach and the waves suggests the sense of being able to re-center one’s energies, allowing small things to drop away while the waves call us back to a perspective on what matters. Praying the Hail Marys of the rosary as a mantra can keep the mind from thinking about the past or the future.²³

3. The leisure mode as a dimension of our contemplative life

In addition to our praying in a leisurely way, I propose that the leisure mode is a dimension of our contemplative life. An example of living in the leisure mode was given to me by Margaret Hayes, RSCJ, who as our noviceship infirmarian seemed not to be alarmed by any illness or disease, even if we were due at the hospital momentarily. She took everything in stride with serenity and a smile.

One way to blend leisure and prayer is to re-create the sabbath on days other than Sunday, or perhaps to move in the sabbath mode during the week. Intentionally carving out a weekend or time on a weekend for quiet, prayer, and relaxation is conducive to living this mode. Another aspect is discovering what helps us to be in touch with the sacred. For each of us it may be a different attraction, for example, dance, substantive spiritual reading, and silence. Another dimension of a sabbath mode is being open to how our bodies want to worship, for example, with a particular posture, icon, scene, or scent. Removing clocks and watches can invite us to get away from “chronos” time and be open to “kairos” time.

We are called to be women and men of communion, compassion, and reconciliation.

One spiritual practice for fostering these attitudes of heart is called in zen “loving kindness meditation.” Spine erect, eyes three-fourths mast, become aware of your breathing for ten seconds. Send the positive energy of your compassion to someone you know: a person with whom you live, a person you serve, a poor person, a group of poor people suffering oppression in our world today, for example, refugees from Darfur.

D. CONNECTING LEISURE AND COMMUNITY LIFE           

A final topic I want to mention is connecting leisure and community life. I am aware that “community” does not imply only a community living group; it includes work communities and “relaxing” groups.²⁴ But community calls us to something more than individual leisure time. What we notice are variety and choice that blend relaxation and leisure.

Before Vatican II, the practice of leisure in RSCJ communities focused on holidays, "work days," reunions, and feasts. RSCJ relaxed together in community on a few occasions, for example, goûter, which is a mid-afternoon snack; talking at meals; congés, which are holidays; Saturday goûter reunion which meant talking and something special to eat; and fusion days, when several local communities relaxed together. The Rule prescribed retreats, such as the annual eight-day one, the tridua or three-day retreats, and monthly days of recollection. RSCJ were required to take part in at least one recreation period a day, an illustration of the fact that leisure was valued. During the summer, some communities built in free afternoons or free time in the afternoons, in addition to the Fourth of July Congé, the July 31 Feast of the Professed, and the Labor Day congé.

In the 1820 Plan of Studies, the students were given a period of recreation with work, which was the same for the religious, for example, sewing at recreation or going out into the garden to pick beans.  The recollection, peace, and silence in which holiday work was done by the religious made it possible to combine study with necessary rest, marked by an atmosphere of joy.

At the moment, North American culture is increasingly distracted.  The distraction within society sets up impediments for us to be in leisure.  We have to relinquish artificial agendas in order to relax into truth. In a mode of oneness we touch the heart of the world.

One of the elements that helps us to participate in the glow of truth is prayer, either alone or collectively.  In real prayer, everything that is artificial falls away.  Paradoxically, if we were to say that we are receiving God, we are not in a passive state.  We are in an active state.  We are put on this earth to be actively present to God.

Leisure means the state of being one and being toward a oneness with God, oneness with ourselves.  In the process of achieving leisure, we have to still a part of ourselves.  Leisure is active.  We inherently know this.  Children know this.  They associate it with play.  And play is active.

Quieting our soul gives us an avenue to patience. In its deep waiting and understanding, patience is active.

The presence of our true self regenerates us.  We create only from our true self.

SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Callahan, Kennon L. Twelve Keys for Living: Possibilities for a Whole, Healthy Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Pub., 1998.           

Cameron, Julia.  The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Perigree Books, 1992.           

Easwaran, Eknath. Meditation: A Simple 8-Point Program for Translating Spiritual Ideals into Daily Life. Tomales, California: Nilgiri Press, 1991.           

Honoré, Carl. In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed. HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.

Johnson, Richard P. Twelve Keys to Spiritual Vitality: Powerful Lessons on Living Agelessly. Liguori, Mo.: Liguori, 1998.

Johnson, Robert A. Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. HarperSanFrancisco, 1989.

Langer, Ellen J. Mindfulness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1989.

Maritain, Jacques. Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. Princeton University Press, 1978.

Nhat Hahn, Thich. The Miracle of Mindfulness. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.

----------. Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. NY: Bantam, 1991.

Pieper, Josef. Leisure, the Basis of Culture. South Bend, In.: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998.

Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness. Trans. Nan C. Merrill. New York: Continuum, 2000.

LEISURE AS A VALUE IN RSCJ SPIRITUALITY IN THE 1982 CONSTITUTIONS

END AND MISSION OF THE SOCIETY OF THE SACRED HEART

#4 “We answer his call to discover and reveal his love letting ourselves by transformed by his Spirit.”

#6 “Rooted in him through contemplation we wish to be women who create communion.”

SERVICE IN THE CHURCH

#15 “Contemplating Jesus, we learn from his attitudes and responses how, in all our relationships, to witness to the liberating power of his love. In faith and simplicity we meet the other as a unique person, having respect and affection for each, and a humility which enables us to be receptive. Always, we are filled with hope in our encounters, sure of God’s power at work in us all.”

PRAYER

#20 “We learn to remain in silence and poverty of heart before him. In the free gift of ourselves we learn to adore and to abide in his love.”

#21 “The Spirit dwelling within us gradually transforms us, enabling us through his power to remove whatever hinders his action.”

#24 “The Society’s call the contemplation, a compelling love written in our hearts by the Spirit, makes us seek and cherish prolonged times of prayer. Our relationship with Christ is nourished by the study of scripture, by reading, reflection and daily examen, all of which are necessary for the deepening of our inner life; this relationship is further strengthened by periodic renewal and an annual retreat.”

#26 “The community takes to heart the need to create a climate which favors experience of God, sharing among ourselves and with others.”

APOSTOLIC COMMUNITY

#31 “Through our mutual trust, the sharing of our prayer and life-experiences, through our love and loyalty towards one another, we come to find real joy in living together, welcoming our gifts and our differences of culture and mentality.”

#34 “We shall reserve some parts of the house for the religious and we shall create in our community life space for silence, times and places conducive to reflection, prayer and renewal.”

CONSECRATION BY VOWS

#41 “We hand over our capacity to relate to persons and things. By the power of his Spirit, Christ transforms this capacity for the service of mission.”

#66 “Friendship is a precious and demanding gift which may be given to aid us along the way of love and faith.”

#69 “Our happiness, our peace, our whole way of being, will be a sign of him whom we have met.”

FORMATION AS RELIGIOUS OF THE SACRED HEART

#72 “A certain discipline will allow us to find the balance between work, rest and relaxation, between relationships with others and solitude, a balance which is essential to personal integration.” 

NOTES